


For A Certain Value of ‘Together’

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld
Genre: Ace-spec Havelock Vetinari, Background Havelock Vetinari/Rufus Drumknott, Book: Raising Steam, Breakfast, Jealousy, M/M, Missing Scenes, Stoker Blake - Freeform, Toy Train
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24771463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: Vetinari/Vimes scenes during Raising Steam
Relationships: Havelock Vetinari/Samuel Vimes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	For A Certain Value of ‘Together’

“This resulted in a re-routing of messages and delay of several hours which, Ms Dearheart assures me, lost the Grand Trunk thousands.”

“No clacks operators were seriously injured?”

“No.”

“Havelock,” Commander Vimes said with a sigh, “I think you have rather overestimated my anger in responding to what is ultimately financial damage.”

“You know why they were burning the towers. Intent matters,” Vetinari said icily. 

“You don’t get to lecture me.”

“I know.” Vetinari stared at the wood of the desk. “Just find the dwarf who stared the fire, please.”

Eventually Vimes’ concern won out over his annoyance and he asked “Is everything alright with you? You’ve been rather... stroppy lately.”

“ _Stroppy?”_ Vetinari pronounced the word as though it were a handkerchief soaked in something unmentionable.

“You know I haven’t been meaning to avoid appointments, it’s just that things keep coming up, and—“

“Tergiversation!” Vetinari said vehemently.

“I’m not making excuses. I genuinely meant to show up—“

“No! It’s two letters longer than equivocation.” 

Sam Vimes stared at the Patrician blankly until he noticed a mostly blank crossword on the desk. It was late morning. Now he really was worried. 

“How many languages are you fluent in, Havelock?”

“Brindisian, Genuan, Morporkian, Klatchian, Quirmian, Latatian, Überwaldean, Dwarfish, Borogravian... Been trying to learn Goblin. But half of those are mutually comprehensible so they don’t really count.”

“Speaking as someone who once declared himself to be a cherry pancake, you are absurdly impressive and you need to relax.”

“I feel like—“ Vetinari was sure he was blushing, “I feel like we’re drifting apart. Margolotta’s twelve hundred miles away. Drumknott, much as I love the man, gets so absorbed in his work that he forgets the world around him. But neither of them of ignore me.”

“Look, I’m here now. I can’t change the past. We all go through rough patches but you’re doing pretty well. Feeling like... a mess... is better than feeling nothing at all, yes?”

“Indubitably.”

“I wish I could match your anger, I’ll leave it at that,” Vimes leaned across the desk and Vetinari nodded with a small smile. Vimes kissed him too gently, too fleetingly and playfully ruffled his hair. “I’ll go find your dwarf, shall I?”

As Vimes was leaving, Vetinari said “Gravid Rust died quite painfully. Venomous spider bite, or so I’m told.”

“Quite a lot of those in Fourecks.”

“So I’m told.”

“Have a good day, Havelock. Try to take a nap.”

-

“Are you angry now?” Vetinari said evenly.

“Why do you do better the worse it gets?” Vimes asked, although he wasn’t sure if he was addressing the question to Vetinari or himself. 

“I‘ve long said that peace is the period of time in which to prepare for the next war. I just hoped I wasn’t right.”

“Maybe you should try saying things that aren’t mind-numbingly cynical.” This was almost a joke, and almost an accusation, but Vetinari smiled. 

“Maybe I should.”

“Moist did well. You are _very_ good at your job.”

Lord Vetinari didn’t receive compliments often. He’d made it clear early on that flattery would result in sarcasm, but Vimes saying this warmed him through. He _was_ very good at his job. He still thought of Sam as a genius and, these days, as an equally distinguished scholar in the school of passive intimidation and not giving anything away. He decided to press his luck. “Might I have a kiss? A proper one, not a goodbye?”

Vimes sat in the chair that was sometimes opposite the desk. “Come over here.”

Vetinari was tentative when it came to physical affection. He wasn’t used to it. He couldn’t always sort out how he actually felt about being caught up in a tangle of limbs, feeling skin on skin or awareness of the warmth and weight of another person. Vimes looked up at him, soft eyes in a scarred face and for a moment he stopped worrying. 

Sam pulled Vetinari into his lap, wrapping his arms around the Patrician’s small, long-limbed body until he could feel his heartbeat. “You wanted to kiss me?”

“I changed my mind.” If Havelock’s heartbeat was anything to go by, he was feeling overwhelmed. 

“May I speak to Lipwig before you call him back here?”

“Please do. I would be obliged.”

“The Low King will be livid.” 

“As she should be.”

-

“Shouldn’t you be getting this information more directly?” Vimes asked in a low voice as Vetinari read out the clacks message from Margolotta.

“You expect me to have spies among reactionary dwarfs?”

“I don’t know! Maybe you do!”

Vetinari unhitched one of the model Flyers from the toy train set and moved it through the air like it was a flying machine. “If I did, do you think they’d be allowed above ground to use a system of communications operated, for the most part, by humans and goblins?”

“Alright. But which of us last beat you at Thud? Me or her Ladyship?”

Vetinari laughed his strange silent laugh. He set down the model engine and said “We should focus on the matter at hand. Looking after Rhys. Looking after the future.”

-

“I’ve sent the spies to Ankh-Morpork on the hurry-up wagon,” Vimes said. 

“Giving away our position! Good idea!”

There was a brief moment of bafflement in the face of Stoker Blake’s open delight.

“Why is that a good idea?”

“We know what they know,” Blake tapped the side of his nose. 

It really wasn’t fair for Vetinari to look this attractive covered in soot and sweat. Vimes had seen his bare arms before, of course, but then his shoulders had been hunched and his arms held close to his body in discomfort at being observed. Vetinari had the body of a climber, all length and tensile strength. 

“The railway guard uniform is quite fetching,” the stoker said, presumably in response to Vimes undressing him with his eyes. “Useless as a disguise, of course.” 

“I thought so too.”

“I’ve been cooking on the back of the shovel. Do you want some bacon?”

-

In Ohulan Cutash Vimes walked around the table to check in with the stokers. 

“It was incredible!” Stoker Jim said, “Blake fought like a demon. He did things with a shovel that an Assassin couldn’t do with a halberd.”

“That would be because Assassins don’t use halberds, am I right, Mr Blake?”

“I ain’t confirming nothing.”

“Not injured, are you?”

Blake nearly broke character trying to counter Havelock’s instinct to respond amiably to the Commander’s concern. 

“What do you think I am, an amateur?”

-

The way Stoker Blake licked grease from the fry-up off his hands was halfway between a cat-like total lack of self-consciousness and indecency. “Did you see all those rainbows?” he asked.

“The mountains are taller than the clouds,” Vimes cut a piece of fried egg with the side of his fork. “The Queen and Aeron remind me of you and Drumknott.”

“Well, we do have the same jobs.”

“Would you want to marry him?” Vimes asked with very little inflection.

“That would even the scales, wouldn’t it?” Vetinari sighed. It was the little, romantic sigh he gave when he noticed something beautiful and fragile. “But it wouldn’t help anything. Besides, Rufus would never want to be Prince Consort.”

Vimes waved a piece of crispy bacon in the air in a general, nonspecific gesture. “You’ve been calling yourself a Prince a lot lately. Are you rebranding?”

“Pax dimidio dierum.”

“Midlife peace? The Prince formerly known as Tyrant?”

“Something like that.”

“Is this because of Pseudopolis becoming a republic?”

“You’ve met my aunt.”

“I’ve certainly met your aunt.”


End file.
